1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for multicomputer data transferring. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method and apparatus for multicomputer distributed resource management.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of online information and services are available through the Internet and other networks, and experienced users expect certain functionality to be present with particular online applications. Online applications are typically accessed through web browsers or similar applications that use HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) to transfer information between themselves and the online applications.
Various operational issues arise with online applications because HTTP is a stateless protocol in which each server access is considered to be an independent connection. Each subsequent user action within a web page typically results in another request from the client to the server. Any significant user interaction with an online application results in many accesses, i.e. connections, to the server.
Hence, developers of online applications face the issue of determining a method for maintenance of user sessions at the server in order to provide the functionality that is expected by experienced users. The maintenance of session information allows sequential accesses or requests from a single user to be identified as such by a server. Otherwise, a user would be required to repeat certain actions for each subsequent access or request to the online application.
For example, when accessing an e-commerce web site, an experienced user expects a high-quality web site to provide a shopping cart function. A shopping cart application, though, requires the maintenance of a continuous user session at the server so that the server can recognize subsequent or sequential accesses from the user and then return the appropriate information after each access, thereby allowing the user to see previously selected products within the shopping cart. Otherwise, the shopping cart application might re-authenticate the user upon each request to perform an action related to the shopping cart, which would be an intolerable experience for the user.
Various computational mechanisms have been developed to address the inherent limitations of HTTP yet maintain session states for online applications that are accessible through web browsers or similar applications. However, most e-commerce web sites comprise multiple applications, each of which requires the maintenance of session state information.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and a system that allows multiple related online applications to maintain session states as necessary for themselves while session management across the multiple related online applications is performed in a common manner.